There are a lot of moving parts in the video game world, with big changes and moves being made at any moment. Since 1983 when the video game market was reborn in the US, there has been a desire to innovate it, grow it, make it better, and at times, make it more competitive. The “console wars” as they are known have been a driving force in the industry and have led to innovations like the use of CDs for games, digital downloads, motion controls, and more. But for Xbox and Sony recently, their “innovation” is to buy up all of the free agent developers to make their library of titles and devs better than anyone else. Though for the head of Xbox Phil Spencer, their recent acquisition is not one to fear.
We’re speaking of course of the acquisition they did of Activision-Blizzard. This was a major buyout that rocked the gaming world, mainly because Activision-Blizzard isn’t exactly in the best place right now given how their employees have exposed all sorts of wrongdoings by the company heads with lawsuits currently ongoing. On the gaming side of the problem, Activision-Blizzard is home to many multi-platform titles, and many felt that Xbox would try and make them exclusives to bolster their profits and sales of their consoles.
This is where Phil Spencer comes in, as he recently wrote a blog post that outlined why fans don’t need to fear what’s to come. He reiterated that games like Call of Duty, Overwatch, and others that are known for being multiplatform will continue to be that. Even using Minecraft as an example of them being fine with everyone having access to a title.
Spencer also noted that for the team at Xbox, the buying of Activision-Blizzard wasn’t about them going and getting all these games, but rather getting the developers so that they could lean on their expertise in a certain field: mobile games. Spencer noted that mobile titles are the fastest growing market in gaming, and he is right on that now that basically everyone has a phone.
For Xbox, they need to provide “choices” for players so that they can have access to all of the best games no matter if that’s on their phone, on their TV, on their PC, and so on. That’s one of the reasons why Microsoft is pushing to get the Game Pass in so many places so that gamers will have a library of great titles from one subscription service.
All in all, you can understand where Phil Spencer is coming from, and his promise that games like Overwatch, Call of Duty, Diablo, and more will be on Game Pass does emphasize the desire for “choice.”
But it should be noted he didn’t talk about the controversies going on with Activision-Blizzard, so you have to wonder if they’re trying to do a little sleight of hand to make players focus on one part of the deal and not the other.
Source: Microsoft
